She was smart with many great quotes like, "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap." lol
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The Backwoods Barbie Doll Dolly
At dollypartonsamerica.com, thanks to Jad Abumrad of Radio Lab, there is a 9-part series of interviews on America's favorite bra owner, The Dali Parton, Goddess of Kindness, a kind of cultural iconand bodhisattva (a "being destined for enlightenment/awakening" by the marriage of compassion and wisdom) for the benefit of us all. Feminist, activist, Buddhist Rebecca Solnit says it quite well:
"Opening Your Heart to Bhutan" is a registered UK charity, whose work is providing education, medicine, and shelter to children facing the greatest challenges in Bhutan.
In this episode, Lopen Ani Pema Deki (Ven. Emma Slade) — a former London investment banker who left after a near-death experience in Jakarta (Indonesia) to ordain as a Buddhist nun high in the Himalayas of Bhutan — explores what it means to widen the heart and become truly unbreakable.
She contrasts fleeting, manufactured happiness with the effortless joy that arises from practice, explains how small acts of kindness build resilience, and reflects on faith, karma, and why some people in Bhutan seem less vulnerable to life's ups and downs.
Perfect for listeners curious about practical spirituality, courage, and living with greater purpose.
Key Takeaways:
🧭 Choose Liberation, Not Comfort — Why training the mind matters, and how practice aims for freedom from samsara rather than temporary ease.
💫 Real Joy vs. Manufactured Bliss — The difference between practice-born joy (stable, effortless) and short-lived worldly pleasures.
🤝 Small Acts, Big Heart — Two-minute kindnesses, widening our circle of care, and the role of faith/teacher in sustaining practice.
⏱Timestamps:
(00:00) – Introduction to Lopen Ani Pema Deki (Ven. Emma Slade), former banker turned Buddhist nun
(01:00) – The challenge of practicing Dharma in a busy modern life
(02:31) – Are we seeking comfort in samsara or liberation?
(02:51) – What happiness really means from a Buddhist perspective
(03:40) – Joy and bliss: natural results of Dharma practice vs. worldly joy
(05:28) – Reflections on Bhutan and why happiness can’t be measured easily
(06:20) – Mental resilience and faith in Bhutanese life
(07:17) – Small daily acts of kindness in a busy life
(07:53) – Expanding motivation beyond yourself and loved ones
(08:52) – Why bother about anyone else besides your loved ones?
(09:20) – Why widening your heart supports resilience
(10:24) – The Bodhisattva path: stretching beyond your comfort zone
(11:14) – How British Lopen Ani Pema Deki (Ven. Emma Slade) became a Buddhist and later a Buddhist nun
(11:40) – Meeting her teacher in Bhutan
(12:24) – Moments of clarity and deep spiritual connection
(14:27) – Karma and how Lopen Ani Pema Deki (Ven. Emma Slade)’s path ripened in Bhutan
(15:18) – Sneak preview of Part 2
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
👤 Lopen Ani Pema Deki (Venerable Emma Slade) was born in Kent, England, and was educated at Cambridge University and the University of London, where she gained a First-Class degree. She is a qualified Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and worked in Fund Management in London, New York, and Hong Kong.
A deep-seated yearning to enquire into the deeper aspects of humanity arose following a life-changing business trip to Jakarta, where she was held hostage at gunpoint. She resigned from her financial career and began exploring yoga and meditation and methods of wellbeing with the ultimate aim of turning a traumatic episode into wisdom and conditions for thriving.
She qualified as a British Wheel of Yoga teacher in 2003 and, over the last 19 years, has run numerous yoga workshops and retreats.
Her interest in Buddhism as a science of the mind strengthened after meeting a Buddhist lama (teacher) on her first visit to Bhutan in 2011.
This crucial chance meeting led to her studying Buddhism with this lama and, eventually, led to her becoming the first and only Western woman to be ordained in the last Himalayan [Buddhist] Kingdom of Bhutan as a Buddhist nun. #OpeningYourHeart #BuddhistWisdom #MindfulLiving #FaithAndPractice
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suñña, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw, Gillian Ang, Wang Shiow Mei, Ong Chye Chye, Melvin, Yoke Kuen, Nai Kai Lee, Amelia Toh, Hannah Law, Shin Hui Chong, Dennis Lee
Manjushri (Sanskrit 𑀫𑀜𑁆𑀚𑀼𑀰𑁆𑀭𑀻, Romanized Mañjuśrī) is a bodhisattva who represents transcendental wisdom (prajñā) of the "Cosmic Buddhas" [like Vairocana] in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
The name "Mañjuśrī" is a combination of Sanskrit word mañju and the honorific -śhrī. It can therefore be literally translated as "Beautiful One with Glory" or "Beautiful One with Auspiciousness."
Mañjuśrī is also known by the fuller name of Mañjuśrī-kumāra-bhūta (मञ्जुश्रीकुमारभूत) [1], literally "Mañjuśrī, Still a Youth" or, less literally, "Youthful Prince Mañjuśrī." Another name of Mañjuśrī is Mañjughōṣa.
In Mahāyāna Buddhism
Scholars have identified Mañjuśrī as the oldest and most significant bodhisattva in Mahāyāna Buddhist literature [2]. Notable traits of Mañjuśhrī include: More
Anattā: "not-self," "non-self," "non-ego," "egolessness," "selflessness," "soullessness," the fact that ultimately all is "impersonal" is the last and most difficult of the three fetters or wrong views to cut.
It is one of the Universal Characteristics of All Existence (ti-lakkhana). The anattā doctrine taught by the historical Buddha is that neither within the bodily and mental phenomena of existence (the Five Aggregates clung to as self: form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness), nor outside of them, can there be found anything that in the ultimate sense can ever be regarded as a self or independently-existing real ego-entity, soul, self, or any other abiding essence, substance, or atman.
This is the central doctrine of Buddhism, without the understanding of which any real knowledge of Buddhism is altogether impossible.
It is the only really specific Buddhist doctrine, with which the entire structure of the Buddhist Teaching (Dharma, Dhamma) stands or falls.
All the remaining Buddhist doctrines might, more or less, be found in other philosophical systems or religions, but the anattā-doctrine is only clearly and unreservedly taught by the Buddha (or buddhas before him), wherefore the Buddha is known as the anattā-vādi, or "Teacher of Egolessness."
Whoever has not penetrated this impersonal characteristic of all existence and does not comprehend that in reality there exists only this continually self-consuming process of arising and passing bodily and mental phenomena, that there is no separate ego-entity within or without this process, that person will not be able to understand Buddhism, that is, the teaching of the Four Ennobling (Enlightening) Truths (sacca) in the correct light.
One will think that it is one's ego or personality that experiences suffering, one's person that performs good and harmful karma and will be reborn according to those actions, one's personality that will enter into nirvana, one's personality that practices the Ennobling Eightfold Path. More
Friends, this is the talk I gave last week presented here edited by Wisdom Quarterly:
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The War of Opinions
Should I write DC a strongly-worded letter?
When we are belligerent and violent, there are always two wars happening simultaneously, the War of Bombs and the War of Opinions.
The War of Bombs requires the War of Opinions as its fuel. If we end the War of Opinions, we simultaneously end the War of Bombs.
Is this what John Lennon and Yoko Ono meant?
We are all responsible for the War of Opinions, so we can end it at any time. The way we end the War of Opinions is by thinking then saying this: "Whatever opinion you hold, I have compassion for you, and whatever opinion I hold, I have compassion for myself."
If we choose these mental positions, we will never have to agree with each other to see the end of belligerence, violence, war, disputes, arguments, and doing harm.
The true cause of violence is not disagreement; it is how we think about each other and feel about each other when we disagree with each other.
Violence can only happen if it is acceptable for us to withhold compassion from those with whom we disagree. This is the cause of war.
Our differences of opinion do not cause violence. What causes violence is that we are willing to withhold compassion from others, any others, because of their opinions.
There is only one reason to withhold compassion from anyone: to actively build more violence on this planet. That's what our withheld compassion does.
If we are trying to accomplish something other than that by withholding compassion, then we are using the wrong tool. If we want to build peace, the tool that will build it is compassion-for-all.
The trouble with these times [is that they aren't a-changin' enough] is that many are trying to build peace by withholding compassion from those who disagree with them. That action builds war. So they are trying to build peace with that which only builds war.
That is like saying, "I'd like to build a house to sleep in, a good strong dwelling, so I'm going to build it out of water." [What do we think we are, fish, mermaids, aquatic plants?]
Water is useful for many things, but we can't cut it into blocks and build shelters with it. [What if we freeze it first? Igloo ice, sure, but this is water we're talking about, not permafrost ice in the arctic.]
Our misunderstandings are so basic to our belief system that we do not see that we are trying to build a house with something we cannot build a house with. That's how elemental our misunderstandings are. But that's also how powerful our opportunities are.
All we need to do is say, "Now that I can see that I've been trying to build a house with blocks of water, let me try again, but with blocks of wood, and see what happens." Voila: a beautiful, solid house.
A house made of water would not be nearly so nice or durable...or livable at all.
Not by hatred but by...this is an eternal law.
And so it is with peace. We can say, "Let me try using compassion-for-all to build peace, and see if that works any better than withholding compassion." And it will work every time. That is an eternal and universal law.
One can't build walls with wet fluid water; one can't build true and lasting peace with hatred of the people who disagree with us.
Our hatred builds something: It builds more of the Era of Belligerence.
It does not build peace in the world. It also does not build peace for us personally — in our day-to-day experience, our family and circle of friends, our workplace and our minds/hearts.
What builds peace for us, in our personal experience, is to say this: "I disagree with that point of view yet still have compassion for the person who holds it."
That builds the kind of deep peace that makes it easier for us to do everything we have to do throughout the day. It makes it easier to be a parent, easier to be a friend, easier to be a whatever.
A war brings these forces to our attention, but they are always at play, in smaller ways, within our lives. Disagreements break out in the home and the workplace. And we always make more peace for ourselves when we feel and think this:
"I disagree with the way my boss (spouse, child, friend, whoever) sees this situation. Still, I hold deep compassion for this person."
Similarly, the fire of war requires certain conditions to ignite and burn and grow.
Remove the War of Opinions and, no matter how many lit matches are thrown onto the fire of war, it will not ignite.
Compassion-for-all is like soaking fuel used in the fire of war. No matter how many flames are dropped on wet wood, it won't catch on fire. Our compassion-for-all ends this war and every war.
I serve my king with no question, Sir. - Good boy
When our compassion ends nowhere, there will be peace on earth. When our compassion goes everywhere, there is no ready fuel for war.
What will happen when we start to pair compassion-for-all with whatever opinion (view) we hold?
What will happen is that we will spend more time in our Peace Mind, which is the higher portion of our consciousness. And when we do this, we'll see new solutions—solutions that already exist, except that we cannot see them yet because they can only be seen from the more loving portion of consciousness.
When we have compassion for others, we free them from our hatred, vitriol, animosity, belligerence, so they visit their Peace Minds more often, too.
Republican gals love soldiers who kill for God.
And when we are all in our Peace Minds, new solutions will be so easy to see that we almost won't be able to comprehend how we ever stayed at war or disagreeing for so long.
Solutions to our problems already exist. Whether we can see them yet depends on our perspective. Where are we placing conscious attention in our own consciousness? Is it our Peace Mind?
It's not that this conflict, or any conflict, is based on an unsolvable problem. It's that we cannot yet see a solution that will resolve this issue from our current perspective.
Move our perspective, and the preexisting solution becomes apparent.
What's the one thing we can do to serve the world? We can learn to transition our own perspective upwards so we can see more solutions and bring more innovations to humanity.
What's another thing we can do? We can pair compassion with everything we think and feel. Compassion can be added to any thought, like this:
"I greatly disagree with what that leader has done, and I have compassion for everyone who lives in that country, even for the leader herself," or "I think that's a terrible thing to do, and I have compassion for the person who has done it." Just add one in.
No consensus of opinion needs to be reached to end the War of Opinions. We can end war without a single opinion ever changing.
We end it by adding our compassion-for-everyone to any opinion we have.
That ends the war, because now it's not a War of Opinions that we're seated within—it's simply a landscape of opinions that are allowed to exist.
It's not a War of Opinions when there is compassion-for-all present. Now it's a community of unique human individuals who compassionately respect each other. We came here to be unique.
We did not come here to create a consensus of opinion. We came here to be in a vibrant (lively and diverse) community of original thinkers, coexisting, more than tolerating but appreciating differences.
Peace Class, free, Wednesdays on Zoom
We came here to learn how to do that in peace.
What makes that possible is this phrase: Regardless of how we see things, we have compassion for one another. That choice-of-thought builds the kind of peace we came here to build.
Peace is not the opposite of war.
When true peace is present, war does not begin.
When people who live in a war-ravaged society arrive at a place of true peace, they first tend to notice the absence of war.
They are surprised to see that war is not there, so they say: "This state is the opposite of war."
But peace is not the opposite of war. What they are noticing when they enter the state of peace, the peace state, is the absence of war.
We use this shorthand until we are hamstrung by it, defining peace as absence.
But to define peace by what is not there is to fail to understand what IS there.
What is there? In the peace state, what is there is the experience of honoring all beings.
Let's bury them alive? War gives IDF meaning
What is there is an experience of deep and sustained compassion—a caring for all others as well as self.
What is there is an awareness that one’s true nature is loving and peaceful with a conscious, vibrant experience of one’s loving and peaceful nature.
What is there is a deep remembering of the interconnectedness (intermeshed oneness) of all beings.
It is not that war is not allowed in the peace state—it’s that no one in the peace state ever chooses it.
War not beginning is a result of what is present in the peace state.
It is not that the "absence of war" is present, it’s that compassion-for-all-beings is present. And when compassion-for-all-beings is present, war is never present.
Defining peace as the opposite of war is like saying, "What’s notable about Los Angeles is that it’s not San Francisco." It’s like saying, "What we know about Los Angeles is that it is the place where the Golden Gate Bridge is not; therefore, Los Angeles is the opposite of the place where the Golden Gate Bridge is." This is nonsense.
This would be like teaching our children, "There is the Golden Gate Bridge, and there is Los Angeles, which is where the Golden Gate Bridge is not." Then our children would grow up to say, "Yes, Los Angeles, that’s the place where the Golden Gate Bridge is not!"
To associate peace with one thing that is not present in the peace state is to be distracted from what is there.
What is inherently present in the peace state is compassion-without-end, the honoring of all beings, the honoring of earth, a sense of the connectedness of all human beings, the knowledge of one’s inherent true nature, and the feeling of love-without-limits and without-end, unconditional love (Buddhist metta,Ancient Greek love).
These presences are all inherent aspects of peace.
When we begin to think of peace in terms of its presences, we begin to understand what peace is, how to build it, how to sustain it, and how to share it.
How do we know that we are having an experience of peace?
We know we are in the peace state when we feel peace’s presences—love-without-end, compassion-without-end, a connection to all others, an awareness of our own loving and peaceful true nature, and an inherent honoring of the earth.
As a result of these presences, we act in ways that are respectful of self and others concurrently. These actions are a result of what we know when we are in the peace state, what we remember we are when we are in the peace state.
Misdefined peace
"Let that sh*t go," the Awakened One might say
When we make the mistake of defining peace as "the opposite of war," what is really happening is that we are confusing peace, a state in which war does not begin, and a ceasefire.
A ceasefire is an action taken as a step to end a war.
Peace and ceasefire are two very different things. The fact that we have used one word to mean both indicates our fundamental confusion about the true nature of peace.
A "ceasefire" can only exist in a place where fighting is a possibility. In the peace state, fighting never begins. Therefore, a ceasefire cannot exist in the peace state.
Conflating peace and ceasefire has created profound confusion—one of the greatest of our time.
That’s what makes this moment so powerful. We can begin, right NOW, to learn what peace is—to learn what is present when peace is. We can begin to understand the difference between peace and ceasefire, and to separate them as distinct. Once they are separated, we can begin to learn about peace free of confusion.
Once we have begun to separate peace and ceasefire, we can begin to engage with true peace, as it is, without its power being dampened by the idea that it is a dance in-and-out of war.
A ceasefire is simply a part of the cycle of belligerence.
The peace state is infinitely more powerful than any ceasefire.
To equate peace with a ceasefire is to reduce peace’s power.
To separate the concept of peace from the concept of a ceasefire is to return peace’s power to us.
Mandy Kahn's Peace Class goes live every Wednesday evening at 6:00 pm (Pacific Time) on Zoom. It is free to attend. To sign up, visit:
eventbrite.com/e/peace-class-with-mandy-kahn. To get Mandy Kahn's free weekly peace emails, visit:
mandykahn.com.
Mandy Kahn (text); Sum of Some Books (War and Peace summary); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly
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